I will note that at least in urban areas, I see kids ubered to school on odd days ... mostly at poorer communities where parents have to work on a random day and still need to get their kids to school. But yeah in the better off suburbs I don't see it happen ever... then again there is more carpooling for those.
There are actually some non uber specialty services out there that claim to do background checks, have extra training, and etc that focus on moving kids or even vulnerable adults around. I don't know how widespread those are.
If my kids could just show up at the door that would save me hours every week.
We sure do like our coddling in the USA, though, where it's even safer.
An example of someone writing about the problem: https://www.thecoddling.com/ -- Makes a good case how instilling these ideas in our youth that everyone is out to get them comes back to bite them (and us all) in the ass as they enter adulthood.
An example of an org trying to fix it: https://letgrow.org/
Of course, a self-driving car is even better than an Uber driver for various reasons, not the least because ape-driven vehicles aren't particularly safe.
For some reason it’s deemed “not appropriate” for them to Uber to and fro. Occasionally there will be parents who we can carpool with, but almost always it ends up being a huge time suck to drive them, wait around, and then bring them back.
I think it’s not so much an issue of them being in a car alone, it’s the random stranger driving them that makes it hard for a, e.g. 10-16 year old to get around on their own if they can’t walk, bike, or take public transit.
So my guess is that a self-driving car will be more acceptable to bring kids around the suburbs to all their after-school activities. Which is a massive productivity boost for the parents, basically freeing up an entire human for 4 hours a day.